Friday, July 29, 2005

Lord Laird Accuses Cross-Border Bodies of Religious Bias

The Newsletter reports that Lord Laird has referred the SEUPB to the Equality Commission. Lord Laird accused the agency to be bias against Protestants. "Since their creation in 1999, the cross-border bodies have carried out most of their work in a one-sided fashion" claimed Laird. Asking questions about the denomination of staff members of the SEUPB to the Government, Lord Laird learned that on the 32 staff members, six were Protestants. "This sort of employment imbalance is not going to instil confidence in the unionist community" remarked Lord Laird. In a previous occasion, the Ulster Unionist politician asked about the denomination of the agency "InterTradeIreland" and learned that "at 1 June 2005, InterTradeIreland employed 38 permanent staff. The religious make-up of these staff is 81.5 per cent. Catholic and 18.5 per cent Protestant."